


we have not touched the stars

by Amber_Flicker



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Developing Relationship, Dice is only mentioned, Enemies to Friends, Guilt, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Oumota Weekend 2019, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-10 23:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Flicker/pseuds/Amber_Flicker
Summary: Beginnings and ends.Oumota weekend day one - Hero/Villain and Enemies to Friends to Lovers.





	we have not touched the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title is excerpt from a fitting Richard Siken poem, Snow and Dirty Rain: We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero's shoulders and the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.

It begins like this: There's a new "hero" in town, his town, and Kokichi wants to test him. Because the last hero went corrupt. The one before that left. They all go bad somehow, none of them are ever real heroes. And none of them can ever stop him- which, if asked, is all he'll say he cares about testing.

(That makes him sound too... well, not like a villain. And let it never be said that he doesn't actually enjoy what he's doing; it's hardly his fault if he's been doing it long enough to see how fucking fake everyone is.)

"I, Luminary, am here to stop you!"

Oh, god. It's one of the dramatic ones. Probably thinks everything works out like it does on tv shows. He won't last long; Kokichi can tell. "Awfully confident, there, mr. hero. You think you _can?"_

"Of course I can," he says, "I've stopped all the villains before you, and you're next."

"No villains here, you didn't do your research, did you?" He takes a few steps closer, and it's clear the hero has his guard down, because he doesn't move away, or move to stop 

Kokichi. "You need to learn the difference between a plain old thief and a villain. Why don't I give you your first lesson?" He's close enough to make proper eye contact, now.

"Are you always this cryptic-" And he stops. No, he really didn't do his research. If he had, he would've known not to let Kokichi get so close. It made him wonder if this one was working solo, or if he had a team helping him. He'd find out eventually, but as it was going it didn't seem to matter, because clearly _all_ of them were inexperienced, if there were in fact others.

"Turn around and walk out like a good little hero, okay? Go right back to your base."

He turns in a daze and follows the instructions exactly. Too easy. It won't be next time, Kokichi knows, but then, he doesn't imagine this one will be around all that long anyway.

But there's time to think about that later. He takes what he'd came for and leaves before the hero snaps out of the trance and returns.

***

Shuichi hesitates as he enters the room. Maybe it would be better to just leave him alone. But, well. Kaito doesn't really do well alone, he's very much a people person, so it's probably best to provide him support rather than let him work it out alone. Maki's never been the best with people, so while she'll quietly support from the sidelines, as always, the talking falls to him. (They all know how badly it went last time they tried to let him deal with his feelings alone. They don't need another disaster, they don't need the team to fall apart again.)

"Kaito," he starts-

"Don't tell me it wasn't my fault," Kaito says, and it's clear he's feeling just as guilty as Shuichi had suspected.

"It wasn't."

Kaito turns to him, anger flaring in his eyes. He's knows Kaito well enough by now to know it's anger at himself. "Of course it is! I got him killed," he shouts.

"How?" Shuichi asks.

"He wouldn't have even been there if it weren't for me. I asked for his help. I practically lead him to his death!"

"We both know no one could ever make him do anything he didn't want to," maybe it's not what Kaito wants to hear, but it's what he needs to hear. (Shuichi knows all too well how Kaito gets, when he thinks he's to blame for anyone's death, but when it's someone he'd cared about specifically? He knows nothing he says is going to competely get through. Not so soon.)

Something in Kaito seems to deflate. It hurts to watch. "He only did it because I kept telling him he could be a hero, y'know." He laughs, a hollow sound. "Why did this have to be the one time he decided to prove me right?"

***

"I know there's good in you," he says, and there's something so compelling about the idea coming from him. Kokichi wonders if that's his real super power- convincing people to hope for things that can't ever be possible and aren't true.

But no, lies are his thing, so he brushes off the idea as easily as he does all Kaito's attempts to convince him he's better than he is. Because while he's far past any such idea of things being strictly good or bad, but he's self aware enough to know he falls towards the latter. And Kaito... doesn't. He doesn't have it in him to lie that easily, or at least that convincingly. 

"Sorry, I don't really have any interest in joining the light side. Nice try, though!" 

"Ouma-"

"Gotta run!" Which is exactly what he does, whilst Kaito is distracted.

He gets away with the steal, that night.

 

***

He'd helped save the world and yet no other heroes bothered to show up to his funeral.

It wasn't a very big ceremony. Kaito didn't recognize half the people there- the ones he did, he knew had been some of Kokichi's accomplices, so he assumed the rest were as well. 

But he didn't ask, and he didn't mention it. They knew who he was and he knew who they were, but here and now wasn't the time for such things. There were no sides here, just people who'd lost someone.

Before he knew it, it was over. It almost hadn't seemed real until now, like he could pretend it was all a nightmare, that he'd never asked for Kokichi's help. Sometimes none of this ever felt real- they lived in a society with heroes and villains, and it was like a game, sometimes, playing hero and hoping nothing would break that illusion. 

There were things that did break it, though. This was one of them.

One of the others in attendance stops him before he leaves. "He liked you, you know," she says. 

"Is that supposed to make this better?" It doesn't. It makes it all so much worse, the confirmation. It makes him feel guilty all over again.

"No. But he would've wanted you to know, I think," and then she leaves him standing there, as he tries to take in the full weight of that knowledge, and try to figure out what to do with it.

 

Kokichi Ouma is dead, and the world moves on.

***

"If you stay here, you're going to die. Don't you get that?" There's something hysterical rising in his voice, in his expression, something too raw for an interaction from a hero to a villain, like he can't stop it from showing. He can't stop Kokichi, either.

Because someone has to stay here, or they all die.

"Better me than you, hero," for once he actually means the words coming out of his mouth. He supposes, if there was ever a time for honesty, this would be it.

"Ouma-" he protests.

"You wanted me to help save the world, didn't you?" He tries not to think about what would've happened if he hadn't accepted the offer. If he hadn't liked Kaito just enough to help. He doesn't know if it'd have been better or worse. "One of us has to activate it. One of us has to die, or this plan fall apart. We both know that was never going to be you."

"I shouldn't have brought you here," Kaito says, but there's only resignation in his words. Kokichi wants to laugh, because he's right- Kaito's life means a lot more than his ever has. Maybe the hero doesn't even realize that fully. Maybe he's only stopped fighting this because he knows Kokichi is too stubborn to back down, because they don't have the time to figure out another solution. 

He's never known what it's like to have the fate of so many people resting on your shoulders like this- he's used to looking out for only a small group of people, and before that, just himself. It makes him, maybe, respect Kaito a little more for dealing with this multiple times in the past.

"No, but here we are anyway," and the time is going much too fast. There's too much they both want to say and that neither of them ever will. "You have two minutes. Go."

 

Kokichi figures saving the world is enough to get his feelings across, anyway

 

***

 

"I need your help," Kaito says, and that's how it all ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing process:
> 
> Me: I wanna write for this prompt but idk what to write
> 
> Brain: remember last year you tried to figure out which villain from the flash kokichi correlated best with
> 
> Me: ...
> 
> Me: *quietly bases fic on coldflash scenes* 
> 
> The fic leaves most things pretty vague, so to expand on things a little:
> 
> Kokichi's superpower is hypnosis, but he has to be able to make direct eye contact to activate it, and he can't be more than 10 feet away- though it works better the closer he is.
> 
> Kaito, Maki, and Shuichi are a hero team, but it's mainly Kaito who goes out to do the physical work. Maki joins when she's needed, but usually does things more on her own and not in the public eye like Kaito. Shuichi gathers intel and helps direct things through the comm line; he's also their in for the police force, since his day job is still as a detective.
> 
> The mission that led to Kokichi's death is intentionally vague but as I said, I decided he correlates well in many aspects with Leonard Snart (the CW version) so do with that what you will...
> 
> cliches-and-coffee // a-logicalruse on tumblr


End file.
